Some other activities

Member of various journal editorial
boards and conference programme committees. External examiner for PhD
candidates at various universities in the UK, USA and Europe. Have also served
as external examiner for taught masters courses. Member of the RAE panel for
Library and Information Management, 1996 and 2001. Trustee of the John
Campbell Trust. Member of the panel of judges for the Salton Award, and also
for the Karen Sparck Jones award.

Research

Research contributions include:

A series of contributions to the probabilistic
modelling of information retrieval and the design of retrieval systems,
specifically ranking algorithms (my BM25 algorithm of 1994 is currently
state-of-the-art);

Extensive evaluation experiments in
information retrieval, including participation in the annual TREC
competition, and contributions to evaluation methodology;

Creation of a world-class research
centre at City University (two successive best-possible RAE results during
my tenure of the department headship);

Leadership of a group at Microsoft
Research Cambridge.

The
Gerard Salton award in 2000 (I was the sixth awardee since 1983) was in
recognition of the above contributions.

Notes

I am now retired, though I continue to hold a visiting Professorship at University College London.